The goal of this writing-intensive gateway course is to advance our abilities as rigorous, subtle, and imaginative interpreters of poetry. Our focus will be on lyrics--relatively short poems in which a single speaker describes (often in intense language) his or her emotions, attitudes, or state of mind. Our readings will be drawn from a range of historical periods from the seventeenth century forward, with particular emphasis on poems written since the mid-nineteenth century. Among the poets likely to be studied are: Jonson, Gray, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Dickinson, Hardy, Owen, Yeats, Auden, Frost, and Heaney. We will also discuss works by two poets at Williams: Lawrence Raab and Jessica Fisher.